


Where in the greyscale

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2020 [6]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (implied) - Freeform, (there's a comment on Christianity), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dialogue Heavy, Dubious Morality, Gen, Heed the tags and the note, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of misogyny and classism, Post-Canon, Racism, Redeemed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Religious Discussion, Writing Exercise, it's a misunderstanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26857879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Joe braids Nile's hair. When she asks him when did he learn to do it, Joe tell's her he and Nicky bought a slave girl around the 12th century.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò & Quynh, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Fictober 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951714
Comments: 6
Kudos: 91
Collections: Fictober20





	Where in the greyscale

**Author's Note:**

> Written fro the Tumblr even Fictober, prompt 6: 'That was impressive'
> 
> Based on the exchange 'Are you the good guys?'/'That depends on the century'. 
> 
> WARNINGS  
> First and foremost, ATTEMPTED SUICIDE is used as a plot device. No one really wants to commit suicide, it's just a misunderstanding and is treated sort of humorously. 
> 
> Secondly, I wrote this trying to answer to the question of how do the characters deal with guilt and regret, considering their longevity, apparent immortality, and way of living. Slavery mostly, but also racism, misogyny, religious hate, and classism are mentioned and/or discussed here. I do not condone any of these or other forms of oppression. If I'm trying to make any point with this story, beyond exploring a completely unnatural domestic and generational conflict, it is that you can't fix what you don't know is broken, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep your eyes open for damage. 
> 
> Other than that, this is intended as a (not particularly successful) writing exercise on dialog between more than two people.
> 
> BE SAFE  
> If you feel that you might be uncomfortable reading this, please don't do it. If you weren't expecting to feel uncomfortable but you did, I'm sorry that I didn't tag or warn better.

‘That’s it!’, Nile boomed as she got out of the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

Nicky looked up from his book and watched her stalk through the living room and up the stairs, wearing nothing but a towel, her hair a mess. Joe patted Nicky’s knee reassuringly from his place in the couch next to him, not bothering to look away from the TV screen. South Korean dramas were his life and blood since they’d moved to the country. Booker came out from the basement, right when Nile disappeared into the first floor. He checked through the window and saw Andy and Quynh still sparring in the garden. He seemed to decide that meant it was his turn to take a bath, and got into the bathroom with a tired, content sigh. Then Nile stormed back down the stairs, combat knife in hand. 

‘Hey!’, called Nicky as he stood up, throwing the book on Joe’s lap.

‘Wow, wow, wow!’, exclaimed Joe right away, TV forgotten, walking in big strides towards Nile with his palms up, in the universal posture to calm down someone about to go apeshit.

Simultaneously, and not registering their movement, Nile rapped with feet and fist against the bathroom door as she commanded:

‘Booker, get the fuck out, I’m not done yet!’

A bewildered, half naked Booker opened the door only to find the sharp end of a standard US Army combat knife hovering at his eye’s height. The situation unfolded as follows: Booker fell on his but at the same time that Joe grabbed Nile’s knife-wielding hand, and Nicky immobilised Nile from behind. An already upset and now knifeless Nile fell on autopilot and followed her instinct to put up a fight before she could analyse the scenario, which sent Nicky and herself stumbling on the floor. Then Quynh and Andy crossed the front door, and Andy said evenly ‘What the fuck’. 

‘The best part is that she kept her towel on through all that. Kudos’, commented Quynh completely unfazed as she walked to the kitchen to pour two glasses of water. 

As Nicky and Nile sat up, Joe and Booker knelt, fussing over her. 

‘Listen, child’, Joe began softly, ‘whatever you’re going through, we’ve all gone. You have to know you can talk to us’. His words were accented by Nicky’s hand on her shoulder and everyone's anxious panting. 

Booker was burying his face in his hands and breathed in deeply:

‘Yeah, I know I can be very gloomy sometimes, and I probably didn’t give you the warmest welcome, even not counting the whole Merrick thing, but Jesus, Nile! If my mistakes show something is that we always have each other’s backs’. 

‘What are you guys talking about?!’, replied Nile. 

Andy bursted out laughing, to the three men’s shock, and Quynh approached them, snickering. She offered Nile a hand to stand up and said ‘You guys seriously believe she was going to try and kill herself? With an army knife, of all things? As if she didn’t know my story. Context, anyone?’

Nicky let out a long deep breath, racked his fingers through his hair and went back to his book, mumbling in 11th century Genovese. Joe lied back on the floor, laughing at themselves not without relief. Booker sighed and rolled his eyes.

‘Why the hell are you brandishing a knife into the bathroom, then?’

‘To cut my damn hair!’, Nile said.

‘Obviously’, Quynh added. 

‘Obviously?’, mocked Booker. From the kitchen Andy stiffed a laugh and it came out like a raspberry.

‘Look, maybe you guys find your hair annoying from time to time, but you have no idea what I have to deal with here, and this place has not a single hair saloon that works with natural black hair, and we've been here for months, so I've had it and I’m shaving it off’, Nile explained in a jittery state. 

‘But you’ve been wearing it nicely braided all this time’, pitched Booker in. 

‘Ya-ha, Book, and my arms have had enough! I’m shaving it off for good’.

Still lying on the wooden floor, propped up in one elbow, Joe re-entered the conversation:

‘I could help with the braiding’, he said. Which earned him an unanimous ‘What?’, except for Nicky, who kept his eyes on his book as he contributed. 

‘That’s true, he became quite good over the years. It’s been a few centuries, though’.

‘Your faith in me is heartwarming, Niccolò!’, said Joe as he stood up and cupped Nile's nape. ‘Come on, little one, let’s get your hair done’. 

\--

‘Well, that was impressive’, mumbled Nile appreciatively, still admiring her new braids through a couple of opposed mirrors. 

‘It was my pleasure’, chimed Joe happily, cleaning his hands in a wash towel.

‘When did you learn to do this?’

‘Around the beginning of the 12th century, I believe. We bought a black little girl from a slave caravan’.

Nile practically jumped off her chair and faced Joe with wide open eyes, pursed lips and murderous intent. Everyone tensed up, not knowing what to expect. 

‘Nile…’, began Andy. 

‘No!’, she warned, pointing a finger at her without taking her eyes from Joe. Then she addressed him, lower but barely containing her rage. ‘You’ll have to repeat that, man’.

‘We are not enslavers, Nile’, said Nicky, moving to stand by Joe, resting on his shoulder the same hand he had put on Nile’s earlier. 

‘For such an avid reader, you’d think you’d know your words. Because buying girls from a slave caravan pretty much fits with my definition of enslaver’. 

An intelligible tide of accusations and explanations rose between the three of them, increasing in speed and volume. Soon Booker tried to intervene, while Quynh, sitting on the couch at his side, simply covered her ears and pinned her eyes on the ground. 

'Stop!', finally Andy made herself heard. When he gathered Nile's full attention, she continued. ‘I had slaves. Plural’.

‘Yeah, what is your point exactly, that all of you are equal parts disgusting?’

‘Oh, no. Not at all. Quynh was a slave herself. And Book, he never had slaves, though on the other hand he never considered his wife might need her own money nor that hysteria wasn’t actually a thing. But if you want to hate Nicky and Joe because they bought a ten-year-old girl covered in scars and missing an eye, be my guest’.

Nile laughed humorlessly.

‘So you’re trying to tell me it’s excusable to buy a human being as long as it’s out of pity?’

‘No, I’m saying the whole world’s economy was based in slavery, and you couldn’t avoid it even if you tried. These two at least saw it was wrong way earlier in their lives than I, or Lykon did. Look, Nile, you can’t fight what you don’t see. Misogyny, racism, capitalism… you are born in those. Until someone or something opens your eyes, you just go along, because that's the system, the shadows in the cave, yadda yadda yadda. Not having a clue of what's happening doesn’t make you a monster. It’s what you do after finding out that counts’. 

‘Oh, no, don’t you try, don’t you dare pulling the ‘we didn’t know’ on this! Ignorance is not an excuse!’.

‘We’ll if it isn’t you tell we what the fuck is! Because we all here have done way worse than buying a girl off a slave's dealer and take care of her for the rest of her life. And you? You are a convinced Christian, Nile, for fuck’s sake, you know what Christians did to Joe’s family and their people? To me?’

‘Or to me’, said Quynh, finally looking up to meet Nile’s eyes. 

Nile took a deep breath, worrying his lower lip, sweeping his gaze from one to the other, not believing that they were trying to spin _this_ around on her. 

‘This is fucked up’, she said. ‘This is so fucked up I’m gonna be sick’

‘Let’s take a walk’, suggested Booker, and they both left the living room, Nile storming out and Booker lingering to share a look of concern with the others.

The other four remained there in silence. There were crickets chirping outside. It would have been comical if they hadn’t been so battered.

‘It is a hard pill to swallow’, said Nicky after a while, talking to no one in particular. 

‘More than immortality, you mean?’, quipped Andy bitterly, letting herself fall on the couch next to Quynh. 

‘Yes’, he replied in his own soft but unwavering way of talking. ‘Discovering that not only there’s a greyscale but it holds many more shades than you ever thought possible, discovering that the people you care for have done wrong, that you might do wrong and not realise... It makes it hard to live with yourself’.

‘You did what you could in your circumstances, and you couldn’t have done any better’, said Quynh, and to the other it sounded painfully like an eco of another conversation. 

‘No, maybe back then we couldn't’, said Joe, ‘but we should be able to do better. Nile deserves better’.

‘So does the world’, conceded Andy.

‘And so do us’, said Nicky. He took Joe’s hand and kissed it tenderly, and went back to his book. 


End file.
